By Geoff Anoke
It is no longer news that the Nigerian Super Eagles won the AFCON cup.However the journey of the Super Eagles from the back of the pack to be the winner was nothing short of the dramatic. Indeed the longstanding axiom that football is a game of surprises is never been found truer.From a customarily Nigerian late and ill preparedness to the fielding of inexperienced players,the Super Eagles were expectedly expected by all but a few Nigerians to occupy the back seat.
Virtually everybody I listened to expressed their readiness to welcome the Eagles back to Nigeria after the first round.Few if any number of Nigerians gave the Eagles a bit of chance to go beyond round one let alone winning the star prize.
However a probe into the matter would indicate that this pervasive negativism is not just limited to a general perceived inability of our national team or any of its attributes for that matter. The locust of pessimism has covered the entire landscape of Africa’s most populous nation. Nigerians have simply grown from the life threatening condition of expecting anything to happen to the suicidal state of expecting the worst to come into being.
Taking a sort of panoramic view of the various segments of our society will quickly show this anomaly. Nigerians naturally expect banks to go under, planes to crash and government agencies to fail. Some have christened this phenomenon as the ‘ Nigerian Factor’. By their unproven theory they mean that nothing is expected not to fail in Nigeria.
After a checkered history that still baffles bookmakers Nigerians have become the most negative of God’s creature on the planet. The reality is that there has never been a semblance of positivism in Nigeria for a generation now. The long military interregnum in governance gave chance to a little optimism. During the military era, Dodan Barracks could release any decree any day. Nobody really knew what to expect. Then the Obasanjo presidency took over the rein of government. At that point the pent up hope was clearly pervasive. Many Nigerians expected a change overnight. But it never came.Nigerins afterwards gave in to an inhibiting inferno of hopelessness and negativism.
The question one might ask is,’ Is this attitude good for the individual?’Is this state of mind beneficial for the family? Is it healthy for our nation and our world?”Of course everyone knows that this weakness will eventually crumble our nation and desecrate our ultimate essence of living if we let it be. Negativism is anti-nature. Even God Himself continually expresses hope and positivity in the turnout of the destinies of individuals and nations irrespective of their state at any point in time. We are products of our thoughts and a man’s expectation is the unwritten script he daily strives to play out.
The key to a positive mental disposition is to expect the best from everyone we have to deal with. Yes ,we may have dishonest people and dysfunctional government but our roadmap to the promise land is to continually place the highest level of faith in their excellent performance and goodness . Someone referred to this as placing a ten[highest value] on people .If you have a secretary who is known to deliver a sloppy work for instance, placing a ten on her will result in your encouraging her and helping her to grow and improve professionally.
You’d like to send her for an intensive training course, find out whether she has an underlying emotional problems that has prevented her from performing optimally. You could do all these if you expect a change for the better. The truth is ,your positive disposition will always result in a change of behavioral pattern by you first If you take this pattern of behavior home to your spouse and then to the Passport Office or any government department, then we’d sure have a nation with a changed attitude. This is the key to our survival as a nation.Let me know what you think in the comment box.Let’s talk about it!
